Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2018
Volume 63, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, April 14–17, 2018; Columbus, Ohio
Session U10: Technology and curriculum developments in Physics Education |
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Sponsoring Units: GPER FEd Chair: John Thompson, University of Maine Room: A216 |
Monday, April 16, 2018 3:30PM - 3:42PM |
U10.00001: Education Research in Graduate Quantum Mechanics: Misunderstandings and Tutorials Christopher Porter, Andrew Heckler Compared to introductory courses, upper division and graduate-level courses have not been as widely studied by the PER community. But such studies are integral to our field, as these are the courses most densely populated by future experts and even future faculty. A study of graduate students’ difficulties in quantum mechanics at The Ohio State University is currently in its fourth year, as is an effort to improve these students’ conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics through active learning. This talk will give an overview of common misunderstandings uncovered by pre-post testing of four cohorts. We will also examine whether there is an effect on some students’ misunderstandings related to their attendance in guided group work / tutorial sessions. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 3:42PM - 3:54PM |
U10.00002: A Controlled Study of Stereoscopic Virtual Reality in Freshman Electrodynamics Joseph Smith, Chris Porter, Chris Orban Virtual reality (VR) has long promised to revolutionize education, but thus far it has been difficult to perform large studies to determine best practices. Part of the reason for this is the prohibitive cost of immersive VR headsets or caves. This has changed with the advent of smartphone-based VR (such as Google Cardboard), which allows students to use smartphones and inexpensive plastic or cardboard viewers to enjoy stereoscopic VR simulations. We have completed the largest-ever such study on 1,189 students enrolled in calculus-based freshman physics at The Ohio State University. The study has covered several areas in electricty and magnetism including electric fields, Gauss’s Law, and magnetic fields, as well as comparing different presentations of material through either VR, video, WebGL, or static images. Data have been collected through pre-post assessment, as well as monitoring perspective tracking within the VR environment. In this talk we will present an overview of preliminary findings. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 3:54PM - 4:06PM |
U10.00003: Uncovering student difficulties reasoning with data by investigating student eye movements Rebecca Rosenblatt, Raymond Zich In this study, eye tracking is used to differentiate algebra based physics students' attention to variables and information when data is displayed in either graph or picture form. Differences in student gaze patterns - when correctly vs. incorrectly answering questions about displayed information in graph or picture form -- indicate that both incorrect control of variables and incorrect logical reasoning are causing students to misinterpret the presented data. Students use reasoning schemes that work for one cause and one effect data but do not work when reasoning with multiple causes. Some students fail to control for the multiple variables and focus their gaze time on a specific variable and outcome. Other students show the correct attention to the multiple variables but employ incorrect logic. In addition, graphed data and pictured data show differences in amounts of gaze time and in where that gaze time (as a percentage of total gaze time) is allocated. This indicates that, while student response choices were on average the same for the graphed vs. pictured data, the cognitive steps necessary to solve the problem are not the same for the two ways of presenting the information. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:06PM - 4:18PM |
U10.00004: An evaluation tool designed to assess physics visualizations, animations and apps effectiveness teaching computational modeling Sebastian Garces, Ethan Stanley, Rebecca Rosenblatt, Neil Christiansen, Raymond Zich, Chris Orbin, Rebecca Lindell With the ongoing use of animations, visualizations, apps to teach computational modeling in physics and astronomy courses, the need for evaluation methods has increased.~ We have designed a rubric~that evaluates each multimedia component across four dimensions: quality of visualizations, connections between pedagogy and learning goals, quality of multimedia use in the instruction and learning effectiveness. In this talk we will present the rubric, discuss its development and validation, as well as present an example of the use of this rubric to analyze a variety of multimedia curriculums designed to allow students to develop computational modeling skills. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:18PM - 4:30PM |
U10.00005: A Game-Centered, Interactive Approach for Using Programming Exercises in Introductory Physics Chris Orban, Richelle Teeling-Smith, Chris Porter Incorporating computer programming exercises in introductory physics is a delicate task that involves a number of choices that may have a strong affect on student learning, especially for absolute beginner programmers. We present a series of hour-long activities for classical mechanics that resemble well-known games such as "asteroids," "lunar lander," and "angry birds" as well as more sophisticated interactive visualizations. These activities use an browser-based programming framework that provides a game-like environment to give students a feel for the physics. We discuss experiences from using these programming exercises in freshman physics classes at OSU’s Marion campus, classes at the University of Mt. Union and high school physics classes in Ohio. This will include results from animated assessments such as the animated Force Concept Inventory developed by M. Dancy and other animated questions. As an aid for implementing coding activities into high school and early college physics classes we also launched the STEMcoding youtube channel (go.osu.edu/STEMtube), which features a high percentage of students from underrepresented groups. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:30PM - 4:42PM |
U10.00006: Incorporating design-based lab concepts in General Physics Matthew Bellis There is a belief among some instructors that many General Physics labs are too "hand-holding" and procedural. In these labs, students work with a check-list of questions and prescribed directions. This approach generally emphasizes reinforcement of the lecture material at the expense of experimental design and application of the scientific method. In Spring 2017 and Spring 2018, we ran/are running a section of General Physics I labs that were redesigned to eliminate much of the procedural approach of previous labs and give the students more agency in how they built, operated, and analyzed their experiments. We developed a lab book, pre-lab exercises and reading material, and an instructor's manual. The results and impressions from faculty and students regarding this lab section were variable and will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:42PM - 4:54PM |
U10.00007: Using PreTeXt to produce a better online text (or lab manual) Joseph Christensen In response to the pressure to use an online text while observing that most online texts are merely the image of the printed page, I searched for options to create a better online textbook. I found two sources for open-source, online textbooks. After acknowledging OpenStax CNX, I will introduce the physics community to a format that has recently been growing in and from the math community: ``PreTeXt; write once, read anywhere.'' With an awareness of the functionality of \LaTeX, the creators of PreTeXt have developed XML tags, similar to \LaTeX\ commands, that allow one to quickly translate their source-text into either \LaTeX\ or HTML so that the document can be easily produced in either PDF, print, or online. They also have plans for output as Jupyter notebooks and EPUB documents. In this talk, I will showcase a recent conversion of our lab manual into PreTeXt to show what is possible as well as initiate some discussion about the possibilities for a cross-referenced (hyper-linked) textbook that helps students see the connections between the topics of physics. I will conclude the talk by introducing attendees to the resources available to begin creating your own source material. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2018 4:54PM - 5:06PM |
U10.00008: Privilege and Broadening Participation in Physics Lior Burko Recently, Scherr and Robertson published a highly visible article in the ``Race and Physics Teaching'' special collection of The Physics Teacher, titled ``Unveiling Privilege to Broaden Participation.'' These authors argue that factors contributing to the underrepresentation of women and people of color in physics can be seen as manifestations of White and/or male privilege and that “White male privilege pervades the discipline of physics as well as the classrooms in which physics is taught and learned.” We review and critique some of the arguments, including (1) ``Physics is portrayed in textbooks as \ldots independent of all social or political contexts, rather than as being shaped by the culture of the European Enlightenment (among other cultures) or the conditions during specific international conflicts;'' (2) ``Physics strongly values male-socialized traits such as independence, competition, and individual victories. Objectivity and rationality themselves, the foundations of scientific ideology, are also male-socialized traits;'' (3) ``Conceptualizing Nature as governed by laws can suggest that it is ruled by a lawmaker, who is often implicitly conceptualized as a male authority;'' and (4) ``We need to be willing to open up the space of what counts as physics.'' [Preview Abstract] |
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